Shopping around in B-town

To my dad, coupon clippers are mere amateurs. Coupons are not enough. You have to have a near encyclopedic knowledge of price points, copious member discount cards and the ability to predict big sales. That's the stuff hardcore shoppers are made of.\nWhile my entire family loves to joke about him, I've come to admire my dad's passion for hunting down a good deal. After being in college largely on my own for several years, I realize now that he managed to teach me "the value of a buck" -- a lesson few people, especially students, have been able to grasp.\nNearly all of IU's undergraduate students are considered "dependent." While many of us are still under the care of our parents, the freedoms afforded to us as we live away from home give us somewhat of an "independent" life. After all, we take on most of the responsibility for our health, our schedule and our financial budget.\nCollegians have a very strange relationship with money. If students are not buying goods with loan refunds or credit cards (theirs or their parents'), they are using meal "points" to buy their nourishment. Economically, this can be a very deceiving way to live. Students think they're in some sort of arcade: you deposit some money and you receive a bunch of points in return. I have actually met students who have no idea that a single meal point is equivalent to one dollar.\nWhen actual money starts to lose real value, a person's economic principles go wayward. Still, despite all the bad habits this can create, there is hope. Bloomington is a great place to practice frugal techniques. \nEarlier this summer, I needed to get a gasket replaced on my car's exhaust system. The mechanic at Pep Boys said I needed a special "doughnut gasket" that would cost about $60-70 and it would take him an hour and a half to install it (that's $97.50 at $65/hour). Total cost: just about $157.50. \nI'm not a mechanic, but I'm certainly no fool when it comes to cars; everything about this situation seemed fishy. So, I set up an appointment at Midas to get a second opinion. Not only were the Midas folks super friendly, they did the job for $38.99 ($5.99 -- gasket, $33 -- labor and tax). Apparently, doughnuts are bad for you in more ways than one.\nAs far as medical costs are concerned, shopping around is essential for those without large health insurance plans. My insurance is catastrophic, which means that most "routine" doctor visits and all prescriptions are paid for out-of-pocket. So when my dermatologist prescribed a medicated gel for me, it was time to work.\nI followed my dad's methods of sitting at the kitchen table with a phonebook, a telephone and a notepad and opened the yellow pages to "pharmacies." The range of prices I received for the gel in Bloomington was quite shocking. The Medicine Shoppe -- $88.30; Marsh -- $101.61; CVS -- $112.99. \nThe drug world looks awfully different without co-pays, doesn't it? \nI even applied this same technique to dentists. Calling 10 random dentists in Bloomington reveals that a cleaning and exam can range from $73.80 (with a student discount) to $120. \nThink of all of the things you could do with the money you save. Just with the $143.20 that I saved from the pharmacy and the mechanics, I could buy an I-bond as a retirement investment, get a portable mp3 player, or even do my part in regaining IU's No.1 party school ranking by purchasing and handing out 954 cups of nasty cheap beer at the Bluebird.\nWith a great place like Bloomington to practice your frugality, being a smart consumer shouldn't start when you leave college. It needs to start now.